RECOLLECTION OF THE BUDDHA

Buddhanusati is one of the four protective meditations.1 It is the focussed
recollection of the Buddha and his qualities. It can be a
wonderfully joyful and uplifting meditation, dispelling the gloom
of negative mental states. However, it may be difficult for some
practitioners to find the correct mental space. To many, the Buddha
may seem a distant and abstract figure, scarcely to be imagined.
When some people think of the Buddha, they don't get much further
than the beautiful but rather stylized image in the shrine room.
This is a shame, and it needn't be so.

Meditation on the Buddha is an exercise in imaginative
visualization. The meditator focuses on the various aspects of the
Buddha in turn and allows her mind to play with the meaning and
significance of the words. In this way her mind can begin to
reflect in some fashion the depth and power of a Buddha's mind. If
you get it right, the mind is flooded with light and bliss.

The great 13th century Zen master Dogen
talked about the paradox of seeing the Buddha and
"old man Shakyamuni"2 at the same time. This points to a crucial
consideration. The miracle, wonder and relevance of the Buddha is
that he was a real flesh-and-blood human being who attained to a
realization of the absolute. It is important not to forget the
first aspect, nor to minimize the second.

Some approaches to the Buddha, especially in medieval
hagiography, lose sight of the "old man Shakyamuni" altogether. It
is no good to imagine the Buddha as some kind of divinity, negating
all contact between him and us. A more likely pitfall for moderns,
however, is to focus excessively on the "old man Shakyamuni" and to
miss the aspect of Buddhahood. This is the danger in following some
of the modern commentators on the Buddha who try to "demythologize"
his biography and teachings. To approach the contemplation of the
Buddha with a dry and barren rationality is to lose all the
benefits that awe and wonder can bring.

In the reality of his humanity, the Buddha can be located as a
specific man of a specific time and place, Siddhattha Gotama of the
Sakyan nation in ancient North India. In the reality of his
realization, he touched something beyond space and time. The
amazing fact of his accomplishment is that he was one human being
who absolutely and totally cleared out all impurities and
obstructions, and by doing so, the unimpeded clear light of wisdom
shone forth illuminating the entire world. This light, the light of
true knowledge, is not something created by the Buddha. It was
there all along, and in fact, our own dim light of unawakened
consciousness is just that, but hidden by the thick clouds
of our conditioning.

So, how does one begin to practise Buddhanusati? Sit before a
Buddha image you find inspiring. Make sure it is placed a little
higher than your eye-level, so that you have to look up to see it.
Light candles and incense, bow three times,take your refuge in the
Three Jewels and close your eyes. Use the likeness of the image as
a point of departure to try and flesh out an image of the real
Buddha as he might have looked sitting under a tree in the old
days. Throughout the exercise, whenever the visualization becomes
weak or the mind wanders, open the eyes and refresh the imagination
with the image on the altar.

Remember, this is an exercise in disciplined imagination.
Encourage the mind to play with and resonate on the various aspects
as you proceed. Be creative and find what works to arouse a sense
of joyful wonder.

The most traditional method is to go
through the list of attributes in the Pali passage beginning
"Itipi so Bhagava ..."3 which is commonly
chanted as part of a puja. It is good to learn at least this much
by heart, as a basis. The Pali is as follows;

The classical text on this meditation is the
passage on Buddhanusati in the Visuddhimagga.4
("Path of Purification") The text follows this list of attributes
and provides an analysis for each one. It must be admitted,
however, that this passage would be mostly useless for most modern
meditators, even somewhat off-putting. It was probably assumed by
Buddhaghosa that his readers would be very familiar with the words
and their meanings, and what he provided is often more in the
nature of etymology, or more precisely, a kind of punning
word-play.

We can try and provide something more practical. What follows is
some analysis and reflection on each epithet of the Buddha found in
this chant. The meditator should not feel bound by these
explanations, but is invited to use them as springboards for his
own creative reflection. Remember that the point of the exercise is
to try to imagine, as best as you can, what a Buddha would be like,
and so to access in some lesser or greater fashion, the Buddha-like
consciousness within yourself.

Araham - [ pron. - Ah-rah-hang] - (This is another
grammatical form of the more familiar "arahant." ) In Buddhist
terminology, an arahant is one who has reached the culmination of
the path, who is fully enlightened. A Buddha is an arahant, and
there is no difference between his realization of Nibbana and that
of other arahants. The special qualities of a Buddha reside in his
knowledge, power and teaching ability. The stock formula describing
an arahant, found many places in the canon, is as follows; "one
with taints destroyed, who has lived the holy life, done what had
to be done, laid done the burden, reached the true goal, destroyed
the fetters of being, and is completely liberated through final
knowledge."

In the context of the epithets of the Buddha, the most important
aspect here is the first, the destruction of the taints. This means
the complete purification of the mind from all delusions,
addictions, negativities and so forth. Just try to imagine what it
would be like to have a mind like that, clear and open through and
through without any hint of a shadow lurking anywhere to obstruct
the light. In Buddhist psychology, it should be remembered, the
innermost and most essential aspect of mind is pure awareness;
which is light, void and bliss. It is only the presence of the
defilements which obstruct us from accessing that inherent
Buddha-light, and their removal is enlightenment.

Sammasambuddho - [ pron. - Sam-mah-sam-boo-doh]
This means perfectly or completely (samma) awakened or enlightened
(buddho) by himself(sam) i.e., without a teacher. There are three
kinds of enlightened beings; arahants, pacceka-buddhas and
sammasam-buddhas. An arahant, in this context, is one who has
gained her enlightenment by following the teachings of a Buddha.
Her path is called savaka-yana or the path of a disciple for this
reason. A pacceka-buddha is one who attains his enlightened by his
own effort, without benefit of instruction, during a dark age when
there is no Buddha-teaching current in the world. His powers and
knowledge are less than that of a fully perfect Buddha, however,
and in particular, he establishes no dispensation of teaching so is
forgotten after his time.

A sammasam-buddha like the historic Buddha Gotama (Sakyamuni) is
one is completely and perfectly awakened with all the glorious
powers and knowledges of Buddhahood. What is more, such a Buddha
establishes a dispensation of teaching, so that his words live on
after his passing.

In the Theravada tradition, this is seen as an exceedingly rare
development. In the entire history of the human race on the planet
Earth, there will be only five such Buddhas (Gotama, the current
Buddha is the fourth; Metteya, the last, is still to come.) The
arising of a sammasambuddha is an event of more than historic
significance, it is an event with cosmic import, as it is said to
illuminate ten-thousand world-systems. Properly understood, the one
momentary event of the Buddha's awakening is seen as the single
most important episode in the entire history of mankind. The shock
waves of illumination from that event are still reverberating
though the planet.

Vijjacaranasampanno- [ pron. -
Wij-ja-char-anna-sam-pan-no] - This means perfect (sampanno) in
knowledge (vijja) and conduct (carana.) The extent of the Buddha's
knowledge is unimaginable to one who in not a Buddha. The Theravada
tradition has generally assigned the Buddha a specific type of
omniscience, the ability to advert his mind to any specific object
and know it, e.g., the number of fish in the Ganges. There have
been debates historically within Buddhism as to whether and in what
sense the Buddha may be said to be omniscient. We need not enter
into these discussions here, which are in any case rather pointless.5

What we can rely on as a starting point for
contemplation is what the Buddha himself specifically claimed,
which is amazing and wonderful enough. The most important aspect of
the Buddha's knowledge is the "ti-vijja" or triple knowledge6 attained to on the night of his
enlightenment. In the first watch of the night he gained insight
into all his past lives, going back many thousands of world-ages.
By this knowledge he dispelled the thick layers of forgetting that
obstruct most beings' consciousnesses and saw his place in the
cycle with stark clarity. In the second watch of the night he
extended this knowledge outward and saw other beings rising and
falling through the various realms in the process of birth, death
and rebirth. With this knowledge he gained intimate understanding
of the processes of karma. In the final watch of the night, he
attained the most wonderful knowledge of all, the knowledge of
destruction of the taints, that is to say, the utter purification
of arahantship - and this knowledge constituted his full awakening
as a sammasambuddha. Contemplate the incredible explosion of
awareness signified by these three knowledges.

There is another list of ten "powers of a Tathagata" which
describe the range of knowledge claimed by the Buddha for himself
(see Majjhima 12). In one of these, he claims the knowledge of
actions and their results, which is tantamount to understanding in
detail the workings of karma. Several of the powers refer to
specific knowledges that make the Buddha a consummate teacher, for
example the knowledge of beings' inclinations and the knowledge of
their faculties.

As for the perfection of the Buddha's conduct, this means of
course that his morality was absolutely purified and that there
would have been no transgressions at all of body, speech or even of
mind. For example, the Buddha never spoke a falsehood or said
anything at all which was not beneficial to others. But
carana-sampanno goes beyond even this. His actions and thoughts
were not only perfectly wholesome but also perfectly mindful. The
Buddha would never have had a careless moment or a lapse of
clumsiness. To see him move, walk and perform the mundane actions
of life must have been a beautiful sight. His every gesture must
have been impeccably controlled and superbly graceful.

Sugato - [ pron. - Soo-gat-toh] This epithet, one
of the most often used in the canon, literally means "he who fares
well." Thus, it is often translated "the Well-Farer" which is
rather awkward. Much better is Bhikkhu Bodhi's "the Fortunate One"
which captures the sense of one who lives happily.

One aspect of the Buddha's enlightenment is that he overcame all
suffering (dukkha) and was no longer subject to any kind of mental
distress whatsoever. This is the great promise, and the lion's
roar, of the Third Noble Truth, that there is an end to suffering.
So, after that accomplishment, the Buddha was one who walked in
bliss.

Sugato is etymologically related to the word sugati which means
a happy destiny, or a fortunate rebirth. Certainly there could be
no happier birth than that of a Buddha.

Lokavidu - [ pron. - Low-kah-wee-doo] - "The
Knower of the Worlds." Again we have an epithet that points to the
inconceivable vastness of the Buddha's knowledge. Which is simply
the unfettered potential of the human mind, once the obstructing
defilements are overcome.

Note that this is "Knower of the Worlds,"
plural. The range of the Buddha's knowledge extended beyond this
conventional human realm. There are many suttas where he speaks
about conditions in the various other realms, such as the hells and
the heavens. There is no reason to follow some modern commentators
here and interpret all such passages metaphorically as indicative
merely of psychological states. Firstly, this is clearly not the
way the Buddha intended these teachings to be taken. He is quite
categorical in several places in insisting on their status as
real possible destinations of rebirth.7
Secondly, and more to the point, those who would deny reality to
the other realms make the cardinal error of assigning some special
ontological status to this human realm. There is a very real sense
in which all realms, this one not excluded, are products and facets
of perception. If we understand how perception works, then all
so-called reality acquires a dream-like quality.

The Visuddhimagga, in explicating this
term, launches into a long digression on the cosmological model
then current, i.e., of a world with Mt. Meru in the centre
surrounded by ocean and the four great continents. Since we have
now moved beyond this model, to a round earth in a heliocentric
system, the passage seems to a modern reader at best quaint. We
should not be misled, however, into imagining that the Buddha
himself necessarily accepted this model. We do not find him
speaking about physical cosmology in the suttas. We do find him
discouraging speculation on such matters as pointless, and there is
his clear statement that he knows many more things than he chose to
reveal; as many more as the leaves in the forest compared to a
handful of leaves.8 It is easy to see that if
he had some insight into the physical structure of the universe, he
might have decided this was worthless knowledge for the overcoming
of suffering. Moreover, had he spoken about such ideas as a
heliocentric solar system, surely that would have attracted all
kinds of debate, discussion and further investigation among both
the Sangha and outsiders. This would have accomplished nothing but
a waste of time.

Once again, the bottom line is that is impossible for us who are
not Buddhas to imagine the power and range of a Buddha's knowledge.
When meditating on this attribute, use your imagination to
visualize what it might mean to know ten-thousand world-systems.
Imagine the range of the Buddha "vertically" through the six realms
of rebirth and "horizontally" through the physical dimensions of
time and space. Can a Buddha smell the flowers on Alpha
Centauri?

Anuttaro purisadammasarathi- [
pron. - An-oot-ah-row--Poo-reesah-dam-mah-sara-tee] -
"Unsurpassed Trainer of People Fit for Training." The Buddha
originally came from a warrior-noble family, so it is not uncommon
for him to use terminology and imagery taken from that milieu. This
title is a good example. A "sarathi" is a charioteer, or a trainer
of horses. "Damma" is a name for an untrained animal, such as a
horse or a bullock. "Purisa" is a word for "man" or "person."
Hence, the literal meaning of this epithet is "Trainer of Untrained
People." This imagery is in line with that used elsewhere, as for
instance when the Buddha compares the training of the mind in
meditation to the training of a wild
elephant9 by tying it to a stake. This metaphor suggests the
image of the untrained person's mind as wild and unruly, and the
training as a process of gradual calming and making workable or
tractable.

The Buddha is also called "anuttaro" here, which means
"unsurpassed," literally; "without a superior." The Buddha, having
attained supreme enlightenment himself, was the supreme teacher in
the world. We have already seen how several of his special
knowledges refer to abilities useful for teaching, that is to say,
seeing the needs and potentials of the student. The Buddha, of
course, also had the psychic power of reading others' minds. Beyond
all this, the ultimate psychic power is said to be his "Miracle of
Instruction," the ability to find the skillful means to help
other's find the path to awakening.

When we contemplate the Buddha's attribute
as supreme trainer of the untrained, surely the most amazing
example must be his conversion and training of Angulimala. Here was
an outlaw, a robber and a murderer of hundreds who was turned
around completely by the Buddha's teaching, took ordination,
practised diligently and attained even to
arahantship.10

Sattha devamanussanam - [ pron. -
Sat-tah--Day-vah-manoo-san-ang] - This attribute also refers to the
Buddha's role as a teacher. It means "Teacher of Gods and Humans."
The word "sattha" is a special word for "teacher" that is almost
entirely reserved for reference to the Buddha and may be taken to
mean "The Teacher."

After his enlightenment the Buddha devoted the remainder of his
long life to teaching others, a teaching career of forty-five years
in all. During this time he wandered from place to place in North
India and taught all manner of people, young and old, rich and
poor, men and women. It is especially to be noted that he broke the
taboos of the Indian caste system by teaching even out-castes;
there are stories in the canon of his singling out candalas
(out-castes) for special attention because he saw that they were
ripe for enlightenment.

The Buddha is also "The Teacher" because his teaching is the
root of all the varied lineages of Buddhism in existence. Every
genuine Buddhist teacher alive today was taught by others who were
in turn taught by others in an unbroken chain back to The Teacher,
the fountain-head of all lineages. Not only this, but indirectly
his teachings have influenced many other traditions, for instance
finding their way into Christianity via Neo-Platonism. His
influence for the good on this planet has been inconceivable.

This title also points to the Buddha's role of teaching even the
gods. This is another aspect of the cosmic or more-than-global
import of his enlightenment. It raises the point, too, that the
Buddha had something to teach even the deities. The states of
consciousness that the Buddha was able to access routinely were
such that even the dwellers in the heaven realms could not reach
them, at least not without teaching and practise.

Among many others, the Buddha taught Sakka,
the King of the Gods, [See Majjhima 37] the equivalent of the Vedic
Indra and therefore of the Hellenic Zeus. Thus, this mortal man was
respected as a teacher by an entity seen by other religions as
supreme. But Sakka is only a dweller in the heaven of the
Thirty-Three, and there are many realms in the
Buddhist cosmology11 higher than this. The Buddha taught in
these, too. He taught the Abhidhamma over the course of one Rains
Retreat in the Tusita heaven, where his mother had been reborn
after her death. Even higher than this are the realms of the Brahma
gods, the fine-material worlds beyond any sensuality. The Buddha
taught here also, as he was able to travel to all of these realms
and did so to help beings escape from delusion. For example, he
taught the Brahma god Baka who had come to the deluded conclusion
that he was immortal and the creator of the world. The sutta
describing the Buddha's encounter with this entity is a fascinating
glimpse into the rarefied states of consciousness and being that
are possible for the enlightened mind. [See Majjhima 49]

Buddho - [ pron. - Boo-doh] It is a little odd
that of all the titles and epithets applied to the Enlightened One,
it is this one that has become by far the best known. In the
original canon it is much less often used than Bhagava, "The
Blessed One," when the Buddha is being referred to in the third
person, or Tathagata, "The Thus-Gone," when he is referring to
himself in the first person. And yet we know him today as the
Buddha, and his teaching as Buddhism.

Perhaps it has survived because of all the Buddha's epithets it
is the simplest and most beautiful. Its literal meaning is "Awake."
This is a simple concept but one with profound depths of meaning.
It says that what the Buddha did under the Bodhi Tree was to waken
from a dream, the dream which still binds all of us.

Even the form of the word has power. The two syllables "Bud" and
"Dho" are often used in the Thai forest tradition as a simple
mantra to be mentally recited as an aid to breath meditation. The
sound resonates the meaning of enlightenment, liberation and
awakening.

In its canonical usage, the word seems to be mostly reserved for
speaking about the Buddha as a special class of being, one who has
fully attained. Thus, it often occurs in passages speaking about
the present Buddha as one in a series of Buddhas going back to
beginingless time. One of the most striking episodes where the
Buddha uses it of himself occurs shortly after his enlightenment
when a wanderer, struck by his radiant appearance, asks if he is a
god, a spirit or a man. He denies all of these, even the last and
says "I am a Buddha." This could also be rendered more immediately
into English as "I am Awake."

Bhagava - [ pron. - Bag-ah-wah] - This is by far
the most common way of referring to the Buddha in the canon itself.
The root bhaga means something like luck or fortune, so a bhagavant
is one who has great good fortune, or a "Blessed One," the usual
translation. This word has always been used in India for referring
to holy people and still is today.

There are many implications to the title
"Blessed One." At the most immediate level it simply points to the
great respect his followers held for him, as it is the way they
would most often refer to him. Another implication is the
"religious" one of the inherent aura of the sacred or the numinous
that was naturally projected by the Buddha. He must have seemed a
holy man indeed. And of course there is the most literal
connotation of "lucky," although in the Buddhist understanding the
concept of "luck" doesn't really apply. We should understand
instead that the Buddha was Bhagava because of his own excellent
karma, accumulated over countless lifetimes. One of the aspects of
Buddhahood is perfection of the paramitas12 ,
or excellent qualities, during long ages of struggle and effort as
a Bodhisatta. The completion of this task is the most "lucky"
karmic heritage conceivable.

Another, perhaps somewhat esoteric, aspect of the idea of
Blessedness here is that the Buddha had been blessed by
someone. This is a reference to the Bodhisatta's vow of
aspiration made in ages past at the feet of the Buddha Dipankara.
The contemplation of this aspect of the word will open the mind to
the vast depth of the Buddha's quest for enlightenment. In the
Theravada understanding of the Bodhisatta career, or path to
Buddhahood, the "Bodhisatta Vow" is an aspiration made in the
presence of a living Buddha. Only in this way is it binding or
finally effective, although one made at another time may help to
set up the karma for meeting a Buddha. The Buddha Dipankara lived
many aeons ago, on another world at a time before this Earth was
even in existence, that is to say, unimaginably long ago. At that
time, the Bodhisatta who was to be Gotama the Buddha, was moved by
faith to make his courageous aspiration, and he was recognized,
that is "blessed," by Dipankara. In all the ages since, while
several world-systems have come and gone, he laboured in birth
after birth at the unimaginably difficult task of bringing the
paramitas to absolute perfection.

So, when he finally walked this Earth as the Enlightened One of
our epoch, he was "blessed" indeed!

If you develop this contemplation, you will find it a great
boon. It is a powerful dispeller of fear and depression. As such ,
it is a useful technique to add to your repertoire for retreats or
just for use as a daily tonic for the spirit.

A final word; the more you learn about the
Buddha and his attributes, the more you can deepen your practise of
Buddhanusati. The very best approach is to go back to the source;
the original suttas13 of the pali canon.

FOOTNOTES

1 Four Protective
Meditations. These are meditations that protect the mind of
the yogi. It is useful to develop these when going into retreat, to
help overcome the inevitable difficulties that arise. The other
four are the meditations on loving-kindness, foulness of the body
and death.

2 Seeing the Buddha and Old Man
Shakyamuni 'Long ago when a sorceror who had the five
miraculous powers was attending the Buddha, he asked, "You have six
miraculous powers and I have five. What is the one I am
missing?"
The Buddha called to him, "Sorceror."
"Yes," he responded.
The Buddha said, "What miraculous power are you asking about?"
You should thoroughly study the meaning of this dialogue. How did
the sorceror know that the Buddha had six miraculous powers? The
Buddha has immeasurable miraculous wisdom, which is not limited to
six miraculous powers. Even if you see six miraculous powers you
cannot master them. How can those who have lesser miraculous powers
dream of the Buddha's six miraculous powers?
You should say, "When the sorceror saw Old Man Shakyamuni, did he
actually see the Buddha? When he saw the Buddha, did he actually
see Old Man Shakyamuni? If the sorceror saw Old Man Shakyamuni and
saw the Buddha, did he also see himself, the sorceror of the five
miraculous powers?"

"Enlightenment Unfolds" ed. Kazuaki Tanahashi pp.109 - 110

3 Itipi so This is part of a longer
formula that includes attributes of the Dhamma and Sangha as well.
It occurs at many places in the canon, most notably in the
Mahaparinibbana Sutta (Digha 16) where "unwavering faith " in these
attributes, together with spotless morality is given as the sign of
Stream-Entry. (Get a printable
copy of the whole chant. http://users.xplornet.com/~arfh/dhamma.html#dh05 )

5 Rather pointless.. See "Path of
Purification ", footnote 7 of chapter VII for a long discussion
from the commentorial tradition on the question of the Buddha's
omniscience. More to the point is the admonishment of the Acintita
Sutta (Anguttara IV,77) which warns us that attempts to imagine the
range of a Buddha's knowledge lead only to " madness and vexation "

7 The gods are real See for instance
the exchange with the brahmin Bharadvaja in Majjhima 100 where the
Buddha answers the brahmin's question about whether there are
indeed gods; "It is known to me to be the case, Bharadvaja, that
there are gods."

8 Handful of LeavesThis is the
famous simile of the Simsapa Sutta, Samyutta LVI,31.

9 Wild Elephant Or see the Kesi
Sutta, Anguttara IV, 111 for an extended simile drawn precisely
from the training of horses by charioteers.

10 Angulimala The story of Angulimala is
told in Majjhima 86.

11 Buddhist Cosmology Read more about
the

12 Paramitas These are qualities that
are developed through practise and are said to be carried over from
life to life. It is one of the charateristics of a Buddha that all
of them are fully perfected, something not necessary for
arahantship. In the Theravada enumeration the paramitas are ten in
number; generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, energy,
patience, truthfulness, resolution, loving-kindness and equanimity.

13 Sutta Reading An excellent starting
place, and one very suitable for this practise, is "Life of the
Buddha" by Ven. Nyanamoli. This is a collection of readings from
the scriptures arranged to make a consecutive biography of the
Buddha.